Making Pickles Makes Monday Fun

I had meant to make dill pickles this weekend, but my weekend project mentioned in my previous post took up more time than I thought it would. I had picked some Sugar Crunch Cucumbers from the garden and wanted to get them pickled ASAP, so I did it tonight. Sugar Crunch are supposed to be good both raw and pickled, so we shall see how they turn out.

This was my first venture into canning using a boiling water bath. I have only done what I guess you call refrigerator pickling before. (I posted about making pickled curry eggs and pickled radishes on the Fourth of July.) I was a little nervous, but all seems to have gone well. I borrowed my mom’s big canning kettle. I found the best way to get this huge kettle of water to a boil was to put it over two burners.

I followed Marisa McClellan’s Classic Dill Pickles recipe from her book “Food in Jars.” I hope it turns out alright because it indicates it should make four pints of pickles and mine only made three.

Last year I did a post about a one-day workshop I took on canning with Marisa. We had made strawberry vanilla jam, which turned out great. She has some recipes on her Food In Jars website and she also has a new book called “Preserving by the Pint.”

Now that I have seemingly successfully tackled the boiling canning process, there’s no holding me back!